June 29
An Unwelcome Result
We make a careful decision and it turns out badly. A plan falls through, someone remains unhappy, or a difficulty appears that nobody predicted. It is tempting to conclude that we were never guided at all. Had we really trusted God, surely we would have been led to the choice with the better ending.
An unwelcome result deserves examination without automatically becoming a verdict on our faith. We may discover an overlooked fact or a motive we did not admit. We may also find that we acted reasonably with what was available. Either finding asks something useful of us now. Trusting God's care is harder to understand when we treat it as insurance against disappointment. The decision remains ours to account for, and the next response remains ours to make. We can learn from consequences without requiring every painful consequence to prove that the original choice was dishonest or spiritually empty.
What does this result actually teach me, apart from the fact that I wanted something else?
Disappointment deserves care as well as examination.
For the A.A. nerds: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Steps Three and Ten.